Three

One lies restless in the small hours, the dead of night—

three in the morning and worried about medical
motorcycles whizzing past a wife on her way
home from work this evening—

Pay attention. This is our World.
War. One. Two. Three.
Digital art ©2015 Michael Dickel

distressed about tear gas and
bullets fired into Gazans
at the border fence
West Bank rioters—

hounded by knives
shootings
the sound
of fighter jets
crackling the sky in two.

Don’t tell one how dark the eyes
just before sunrise. Don’t
tell one how to escape here
or to watch Seinfeld and
order pizza. Pay attention.
This is our world.    Now.

One weighed down by a century
dead while demonstrating for peace—

trying to rise up and see hope
that we want it—disheartened by
chants of kill the Arabs kill the Jews
college campuses dimmed to ghastly—

hearing two bomb blasts
gunfire last gasps
school girls
kidnapped
one pregnant
mother and her child
buried in rubble—three dead.

Don’t tell one to light two eyes
and shine like three dawns. Don’t
tell one how to find a job or exercise
twice as much or to open three beers.
Pay attention. This is our World.
War. One. Two. Three.

—Michael Dickel ©2015